One shot saved the day, saved his team, saved him.
Freddie Jones stuck in a leaning runner over a defender with 2.8 seconds left to give No. 2 seed Oregon a 72-70 win over No. 6 Texas on Friday night in the Midwest Regional semifinal at the Kohl Center.
Until that basket, only his second of the game, Jones had done nothing of much importance nor had he been of much help to his teammates for the first 39 minutes 57 seconds.
But when it mattered, when it seemed the Ducks (26-8) had wasted what had once been a 13-point lead in the second half, Jones took the ball and set his mind on one thing.
“I had to score,” Jones said. “I owed my guys.”
Jones went straight into the lane, leaned into Deginald Erskin and scored the winning basket. Erskin fell onto his back partly from the force of Jones and partly in the desperate hope of drawing a charging foul.
“When we needed him, Freddie came up big,” Oregon point guard Luke Ridnour said.
Ridnour, a sophomore, had floated around the perimeter all game and shot leaners, arching shots and little hanging bank shots to score 20 points for the Ducks.
Luke Jackson, Oregon’s curly-haired forward, had taken aim from everywhere and done his work both inside and outside, layups and three-pointers while scoring 25 points.
The Lukes gave Oregon its working lead. Then Jones saved them from blowing it.
But until the last three seconds, Jones–Oregon’s leading scorer with an 18-point average and the acrobatic catalyst of the Ducks’ fast-paced offense–had spent much of the first half on the bench after getting two fouls and most of the second half stumbling into turnovers and committing desperate fouls.
Oregon led 41-28 at halftime.
“We felt pretty good to have that lead,” Jackson said, “without having Freddie on the floor most of the time.”
But the Longhorns (22-12) capped a 13-0 run when Brian Boddicker hit his third three-pointer in the streak to tie the score at 51-51 with 12:09 left.
The Ducks scored the next seven points, Texas seven of the next eight and the battle was engaged for good with 4:56 left.
James Thomas led Texas with 15 points, including an inside basket that tied the score 70-70 with 23.2 seconds left. He was fouled but failed to convert.
This is Oregon’s first regional final since 1960 after winning its first Pac-10 title since 1945.
“And we don’t want to be finished yet,” Jones said.
